27 October 2009
Dr Pam Berry attends the launch of the Science Museum's "Prove it!" event to showcase research on biodiversity and climate change
Dr Pam Berry was invited to attend the launch of the Science Museum’s ‘Prove it!’ exhibition at the Science Museum last week, and to return this week to encourage visitors to explore the scientific evidence that human activity is behind climate change, and to decide if they support a strong, effective and fair deal at Copenhagen.
The exhibition also provides an opportunity for scientists to talk with the public about their area of research and in particular, its relevance to the Copenhagen COP negotiations taking place in late 2009. Pam’s research focuses on the linkages between climate change and biodiversity, and looks at how biodiversity can be part of the solution to climate change.
Biodiversity can be an important store of carbon with several terrestrial ecosystems (e.g. tropical forests and tundra) individually sequestering as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere. These same ecosystems are likely to become a net source of carbon during the course of this century and thus add to the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, further increasing warming. Humans are also going to have to adapt to climate change and here biodiversity can help too. Restoring or re-creating wetlands, for example, can help store more carbon, reduce flooding and improve biodiversity, thus representing a triple win situation. So in the words of an EU conference on Biodiversity Loss held in Athens earlier this year "We cannot halt biodiversity loss without addressing climate change, but it is equally impossible to tackle climate change without addressing biodiversity loss."
Read more of Pam’s recent work:
Assessing the costs of adaptation to climate change: A critique of the UNFCCC estimates
Final MACIS project report edited by Pam Berry: Climate change Impacts of mitigation and adaptation measures on biodiversity